The Shadow of Collaboration: The Political Legacy of Nazi occupation in Denmark
P8-S201-1
Presented by: Frederik Thieme
During World War II, Nazi Germany occupied numerous European countries, leaving profound political, social, and cultural legacies. While much research has focused on the experience of occupation, victimhood and resistance, the equally critical topic of collaboration remains underexplored in both scholarly inquiry and public discourse. This study examines the aftermath of wartime collaboration in Denmark, focusing on its long-term political and societal legacies. Leveraging the Bovrup list—a unique dataset of 18,700 Danish Nazi Party members including names, occupations, and addresses—we use party member presence as a proxy for local Nazi sympathy to investigate its effects on post-war electoral outcomes and political attitudes. We geolocate Bovrup list members to generate locality-based measures of Nazi sympathy, which we connect to historical electoral results and survey data. The analysis explores whether areas with higher concentrations of party members exhibit distinct political trajectories, such as shifts in voter behavior or attitudes toward democracy. By focusing on Denmark, this study provides a framework for examining similar dynamics in other occupied nations, contributing to broader debates about how wartime collaboration shapes democratic resilience and public perceptions of governance.
Keywords: Voting behavior, Elections, Historical legacy, Nazi occupation, Denmark